


All We Know is Midnight

by DarknessAroundUs



Series: Teen Wolf Inspired Verse [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling, F/M, Minor/Background Relationships - Freeform, Mutual Pining, Pack Feels, Slow Burn, Teen Wolf inspired, Werewolf Jughead Jones, so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22176568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarknessAroundUs/pseuds/DarknessAroundUs
Summary: Jughead’s known Betty since he was born. She was the first human he showed his true teeth to at six. Even then, she was brave enough to reach out and touch them. She smiled with glee and said “Oh Juggie, they’re beautiful!”.Another Werewolf AU.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: Teen Wolf Inspired Verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734097
Comments: 40
Kudos: 161
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	All We Know is Midnight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KittiLee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittiLee/gifts).



> An un-revised version of the first section was published before on Tumblr, but only that part has been previously “published”.
> 
> This is very much inspired by my Teen Wolf obsession. There are no character crossovers or anything like that, but a lot of the pack dynamics, tropes, and werewolf mythology are lovingly borrowed from a number of fics, most notably (Sacred) in the Ordinary by Idyll (https://archiveofourown.org/works/406369/chapters/670624). 
> 
> And by borrowed, I don’t mean anything really overlaps, but the original seed idea, like a werewolf conference (a popular teen wolf trope), is not mine. 
> 
> The terms alpha, beta, omega are used but in the context of the show, and are no way part of the abo/kinkverse. Alpha is the head of the pack, the only werewolf that can “bite” new werewolves, a beta is a pack member, and an omega is a lone werewolf without a pack.
> 
> As part of that I should warn you that there is a lot of pack cuddling and sleeping together that is in no way sexual. If that’s a big no-no for you, this isn’t the fic for you (I’m sorry!). Also I’ve never seen Teen Wolf and don’t plan to, so there’s that. 
> 
> A huge thanks is owed to KittiLee for betaing this and for being the best (seriously guys! - she just watched the first two seasons of Teen Wolf, which is way further than I got). 
> 
> This is also a gift to her, because she is so very wonderful, and she deserves all the gifts. 
> 
> My very first werewolf Jughead story that I posted about a year ago started an email conversation between us that has in no way slowed down since and that my husband often jokes about being jealous of.

**1.**

Betty’s heart rate slows. Jughead can hear the missing beats, the lag times, each second without the steady thrum of it, makes his own heart race. 

To his left, Veronica, still in her wolf form, says, “Steady Jughead. We’re almost at the truck.”

Veronica’s words do little to calm him, but at least he’s doing better than Archie, who is circling them, fangs out, temper high. The rogue werewolf, Malachi, is dead half a mile back. It’s not like there are any other threat’s close by.

Jughead is carrying Betty in his arms, her neck limp, her head heavy. Consciousness was something she lost a while ago.

They arrive at the truck, Veronica's somehow changed both in terms of features and clothes. Archie’s got the door propped open and the rear of the cab is just a bench seat. 

Jughead’s about to put Betty back there when Archie tugs on his arm, “Jug, you need to bite her.” 

Behind them Veronica snarls, “It’s not what she wants. She’s turned down the bite at every offer so far.”

“She wasn’t dying then,” Archie spits, his claws elongating out of anger.

Jughead gets the temptation, the ease at which he could turn Betty from a vulnerable human, into something built to survive.

But he’s known Betty since he was born. She was the first human he showed his true teeth to at six. Even then, she was brave enough to reach out and touch them. She smiled with glee and said “Oh Juggie, they’re beautiful!” 

Jughead told Gladys after, and her facial expression had twisted into a scowl when she’d said, “You know Betty is your mate, right?”

He’d nodded. He’d always known. 

“Never tell her you’re her mate,” his mom had snarled. “But it’s ok that she knows you’re a wolf.”

When Archie found out about werewolves at fourteen, he wanted the bite so badly he begged for it. Veronica chose to be turned after only dating Archie for a month. They called it “the gift”. 

Betty’s been pack since Jughead shwed her his teeth, but she’s never wanted the bite. 

Jughead has never come straight out and asked her about it but Archie has repeatedly. The last time Archie asked, she told him, “I was always meant to be human. I couldn’t trust myself with that kind of power.”

Archie laughed at that, but Jughead understood. It was the reason he chose Betty to be his second. She was the smartest, the strongest in her own way. But her sense of justice sent her too close to the edge sometimes, even without powers. 

Still, in this moment it’s tempting to bite her. The hospital is twenty minutes away and all he wants to do is help her live. 

He thinks of FP, who turned down the bite from Gladys a dozen times before she died. When Jughead asked him about it once FP said, “I’m barely a person now, imagine what a bite would do?” 

FP was drunk at the time, but Jughead was pretty sure that he would say the same thing sober. 

Jughead has never been tempted to turn his father, but right now he wants to turn Betty, so badly. He loves her in the way he loves no one else, not even FP. She’s his life partner, his mate, even if it’s not romantic between them.

“We honor her wishes,” Jughead says, his voice calm and steady. 

He lays Betty in the back seat carefully. Her pulse is still slow, but it hasn’t changed for the last minute or so. He takes that as a good sign.

“No,” Archie whines.

“Yes.” Jughead stares into Archie’s eyes with the alpha glare. Archie has no choice but to obey, to turn his head in submission.

Veronica's already sitting shotgun by the time Jughead slides into the driver's seat, so Archie has to jump into the back. 

The drive to the hospital is rough and fast. The paramedics take over as soon as they arrive and Betty is rushed out of sight. 

Ten minutes later Alice enters, glaring. Ever since Jughead healed from a bullet wound right in front of her, Alice has known about werewolves. Jughead swears that Alice would have become a hunter, if not for the fact that the first hunters she learned about were the Blossoms. Luckily, her hatred of them surpassed her hatred for Jug and his pack.

Betty’s situation is declared stable, thankfully, but she stays in the hospital for a week after that, a month later, she's still healing. 

Jughead tries to bring it up once, while they do homework on her sofa, but she just changes the subject. 

The topic joins others on the short list of things they know about each other, but don’t talk about. This list also includes (but is not limited to) FP’s alcoholism and Betty’s period.

A week later the pack is cuddling and chatting on the floor of Fred’s living room. They are all in various stages of undress.

Archie, Sweet Pea, and Fangs are in boxers, Veronica and Toni are in their underwear and Betty’s wearing a cropped t-shirt and an old pair of cheer shorts. 

Jughead’s seen all the wolves naked before, at least on the full moon, so he pretty desensitized to everyone. That is, everyone but Betty.

Cuddling is such an important part of pack bonding. Skin to skin always plays a role. It’s what helps everyone feel connected, even the humans. Betty swears that she can tell when Jughead or one of the beta’s are in pain, and so far, based on experience, that seems to be the case.

Jughead is always in the center of the cuddle pile, and Betty’s next to him, her cheek heavy on his chest. Everyone else is tangled around them. 

They’ve done this many times before, but this is the first time’s Betty’s felt up to joining them since she was attacked by the rogue, and Jughead can’t help but keep glancing over towards Betty to reassure himself she’s safe and comfortable.

During one of the furtive glances he notices the scar, a white line running all the way down the side of her body, disappearing into her cheer shorts.

Jughead’s been sliced so many times he’s lost count, but his body doesn’t bare the mark of any of them. 

**2.**

Betty’s known about werewolves for most of her life, but she only learned about werewolf conventions last year. 

In spite of the recent nature of her discovery, Jughead and she have just checked into the 95th annual Northeast Werewolf Convention.

Archie had wanted to go. Not all werewolves accepted humans to be legitimate members of packs, and Archie, in his normal kindhearted, thickheaded way had wanted to shield her from that.

But it’s an important convention, it’s the first one Jughead’s attending. Their pack is strong now, but without allies they’re vulnerable, and the only way to make allies is to go to events like this one. Jughead should have started attending them years ago. 

Gladys died when Jughead was eight so he’s been an Alpha for a long time now. Back then, most other weres wouldn’t have taken him seriously. Even now, he’s the only Alpha here who is still in high school.

In any case, Betty knows Jughead needs her by his side. Archie and he often make rash decisions together, but Betty knows how to make Jughead think before he shifts, claws out.

Besides, she’s been in charge of their bestiary for years, and understands the intricacies of pack politics, having negotiated their borders with the three neighboring packs. 

They are unpacking in the hotel room. Betty’s hanging up the one good dress she has in the closet and Jughead’s suit. He’s flopped on the bed staring up at the ceiling as if it holds the answers to how to get through this weekend.

“We will be fine,” Betty says, not for the first time, “What panel are you attending first?”

“Whatever you are.”

Betty laughs. This is another reason she had to come. Without her here Jughead would have been his antisocial self and stuck to the hotel room as much as possible. 

She’s pretty sure he hasn’t even glanced at the schedule, aside from figuring out when meals are served. It’s a little frustrating, considering the fact that they are here to make alliances.

“Jug, there is no way you should come to ‘being Human in a werewolf pack’ with me.”

Jughead scoffs and sits up. “You should be teaching that seminar, not attending it.” 

Betty shakes his head dismissively, but an hour later, after sitting through thirty minutes of useless chit-chat, she has to admit that he was right.

That’s when the polished brunette sitting next to Betty leans over and says, “This is beyond useless.”

Betty laughs, “Only mates and seconds are even allowed to attend this conference and these people are teaching werewolf 101.”

“I know, I’ve been mated for six years.” 

“I’ve been second for nine.”

The brunette raises a questioning eyebrow “You must be older than you look.”

Betty shook her head, “I only became second because I was the only person in Jughead’s pack that was sober and still alive.”

She can still remember the day Gladys died, the hunter who shot her was lucky only for a moment, before Jughead took that hunter’s life. 

In a normal pack, being the Alpha would have passed to someone older, even if they weren’t genetically related. But Gladys had always been a loner and “proud of it”. Her pack had consisted of Jughead, FP, and Betty. As the only surviving werewolf, Jughead was the only option. 

It made the next few years difficult. Rouges kept trying to steal his power, but none of them succeeded. FP sobering up and becoming sheriff helped, but so did Betty with her ability to manipulate mountain ash and her love of research.

“You’re in the Jones pack. I should have guessed,” the woman says with a smile. The people around them clap, and Betty realizes the panel is finally over. “I’m Catherine from the Tate pack.”

The Tate’s are the largest pack in New Jersey. Betty’s impressed, but she doesn’t let it show, instead she just extends her hand and says, “I’m Betty.”

It turns out that the panel was helpful after all, just not for the reasons Betty had originally thought, Catherine was a lot of fun and very generous. 

By breakfast time, Catherine’s mate James was getting along well with Jughead, and by the end of the conference, they have signed a treaty with the Tate’s and three other packs.

On the last night, Jughead flops next to her on the bed, and throws a leg over hers. “I’m going to miss this.”

“The forced socializing?” Betty jokes.

“Hell no. I’m going to miss the lack of parents, and the fact that it’s just you and me.”

Betty takes that sentence in and tries not to misinterpret it. She loves the pack and she knows Jughead does too, but it is nice to just be the two of them again, their own little insular bubble. That must be what he means, she thinks. 

Just because she’s loved him, romantically and otherwise, for at least five years now, doesn’t mean that he feels that way about her. Unless he’s hinting at that now. 

Yet she won’t let her heart get too much hope up. It’s been particularly hard this weekend because everyone’s assumed they were together until they realized otherwise based on scent - if Betty’s learned anything this weekend, it is that it is impossible to keep sex or lack of it, to oneself when surrounded by werewolves. 

Betty finally says, “It’s always good to spend time with you.” 

Only then does she realize that Jughead’s asleep. She tries to focus on the drool pooling around his mouth instead of how wonderful it feels to have his body pressed against hers.

They cuddle all the time, but usually as part of a larger pack pile. It’s different for there to be just the two of them. 

It feels more romantic this way, with no sweaty teenagers breathing down their necks. Betty has to keep reminding her body that this cuddle, is no different than then the others.

**3.**

The witch is quick. She’s got Archie’s mouth sealed with his own flesh, and now her hands are pointing at Jughead.

Jughead can feel the spell overwhelm him. It tugs at his feet first, gluing him to the floor so he can’t move, then it moves up his body.

Every bone and muscle locks into place. The spell is just starting to take hold of his hands when the witch falls forward, another person heavy on her back. 

Jughead recognizes Betty immediately but he doesn’t know how she got here. She was supposed to be miles away working on her finals. Yet here she is, knife hilt deep in a witch’s neck. 

The spell fades slowly, and the thawing process is strange and painful. Jughead finds himself sprawled on the floor for a while. Archie has no problem talking again right away, or rather his mouth starts moving right away. It’s impossible to hear him over Betty’s shouts.

She’s livid, and every word she says makes that clear, “You have a whole pack, and you two decided to handle this on your own! Why the hell would you do that?”

“No one else was finished with their finals,” Archie mumbles. 

Before they set out to confront the witch, that seemed like a good enough reason. After all, the whole pack is about to graduate from High School, and only Betty’s grades are secure enough to weather a botched final.

But now that he’s hearing Archie say it out loud, Jughead realizes how absurd it was for them to go it alone. Witches should never be underestimated. This is a lesson they’ve learned over and over again. 

Betty says nothing, instead she bends down and helps Jughead up from the floor. 

“How did you even find us?” Archie asks.

“I put a tracker in Jughead’s cell phone,” she says. 

“How could you?” Archie says, a look of horror on his face, as if he personally had been betrayed. It’s not like the tracker was on his phone.

Jughead’s just relieved she thought of doing that, and he’s kicking himself for not having done the same thing to her phone yet. 

“She did the right thing,” Jughead growls at Archie. ”We’re alive because of her.”

Archie paces for a few minutes more before calming down. Betty has to drive her car home, so Jughead’s stuck in his truck with Archie.

When they are halfway home Archie turns to him and asks, “Why do you let Betty do whatever the hell she wants, but you’re so quick to order the rest of us around?”

Jughead considers dismissing it as simply a difference between werewolves and humans or between betas and seconds, but the truth is Betty is his equal in every way and his partner. 

Not romantically, as much as he would like that, but she’s his other half, and Archie, who has known them both their whole lives, should know that. 

So Jughead rolls his eyes and says, “Because Betty’s better than you.” 

Archie scoffs, “No, it’s because you’re in love with her.”

“That is besides the point.” 

Last year he would have tried to deny it outright, but he knows better now. His betas aren’t all complete idiots. 

Only Betty doesn’t know, although it takes all the will he has in his body not to tell her. He already knows she loves him back. 

If only it were about them, and not the half dozen other pack members who relied on them to stay focused and strong. And for now, that means staying single.

If only Jughead didn’t hear Gladys’s voice in his head every day saying, “Don’t tell her kid. You’ll ruin everything.” 

Jughead stops the car in front of Archie’s house. Archie jumps out and runs into the Andrews house. The door slams loudly behind him.

Jughead stares at it for a minute, wondering why his best friend is so angry. On the other side of the door he hears Archie exclaim, “At this rate, their first kiss is going to be in a nursing home.”

There’s laughter that sounds distinctly like Veronica. Jughead puts the truck into gear before he can hear her verbal response. 

**4.**

Betty’s packing for college, and even without werewolf senses she can feel energy buzzing between her and Jughead, invisible but loud. 

Veronica and Archie helped out earlier but they left over an hour ago, rolling their eyes. As they exited the room Veronica shouted, “Figure it out idiots.”

Jughead had just rolled his eyes. “Who are they calling idiots?” he said, folding a shirt so tightly that the fabric almost ripped.

Betty had removed it carefully from his hands and placed it in a cardboard box. They hadn’t said much since then. Betty had put some music on and Jughead was humming along to it. 

“I’m not leaving forever,” Betty says softly. “I’ll be back next weekend.”

“I know,” Jughead says meeting her gaze, his eyes flashing red for a second, as if the alpha in him is tempted to say otherwise.

“I’ll be back most weekends,” Betty says.

“But not to this house?” It’s a question Jughead already knows the answer to.

This summer the pack had pooled their resources and bought a house. Most of the money that went into it was Veronica’s, which meant the house they had bought was actually a mansion, swimming pool and all.

Everyone else had already moved in, but Alice had forbidden it. Betty initially had gone along with Alice’s wishes, more in order to not rock the boat than anything else.

As the summer progressed, Alice had gone from passive aggressive level one to active aggressive level ten. Which is to say she’d gone from critiquing Betty’s choice in clothing to shredding anything she didn’t like, including the one t-shirt Betty had stolen from Jughead from the first werewolf convention, two years ago.

It was a crappy summer, but it helped make it very clear to Betty that she had to get out and stay out. Right now, as far as Alice was concerned Betty was packing to attend the Alice approved college. 

As far as Betty was concerned, anything she left behind in this room she would never see again.

“Never to this house,” Betty says, throwing a whole pile of cardigans she only loathes marginally into a box.

She’s already been assigned a bedroom in the pack house for the weekend’s, when she’s not at college. It’s the one next to Jughead’s, of course, and she doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse. 

As much as she loves Jughead, she knows he must not love her back, or rather he must not feel that way romantically, because he smells her arousal every day, he already knows she likes him. If he liked her back, they would already be together.

Veronica keeps insisting it’s not that simple, but Betty knows that V is all about the happy ending. 

At this point, Betty just wants to preserve her friendship with the most important person in her life, and not die of embarrassment. There’s no point in saying anything out loud, only for him to actively reject her. It’s less awkward for the rejection to be passive and silent. 

Although living one room over from him, even just on weekends, won’t help her feelings for him go away. At this rate she’s going to live a life of unrequited love, but she tries not to think about that.

“Good,” Jughead says. “I’m having a hard time adjusting to having so much space and it will be better knowing you’re there.”

“But everyone else is already there.” Their pack has grown over the years to include Fang’s boyfriend Kevin, the only other human member of the pack, and Josie, a banshee. 

“It’s not the same without you,” Jughead says, reaching over and taking her hands in his. In moments like these, it’s hard for Betty to believe he doesn’t want to kiss her. 

Instead he says, “I want you to have such a good time at college and come back stronger for the pack.” The fever in his gaze, makes it feel like he’s trying to impart some secret message to her, but if he is, she can’t figure it out. 

Instead, Shake It Off comes on over the speaker and he starts teasing her mercilessly about it. 

**5.**

It’s the night before Christmas, Archie just brewed his first actually non-toxic batch of wolfsbane beer and the house is full of drunken wolves.

Jughead is sober. He’s seen how alcohol affected his father. That’s a path he’s not interested in heading down. Although he took a sip just to pacify Archie.

This makes Betty and him the only sober ones. They are on the sofa, cuddling and trying to talk, as all around them the beta’s leap and play fight, and actual fight and scream.

“Getting drunk never looks very pleasant,” Betty says as Toni runs after Fangs yelling something about wood sprites. 

“I agree,” Jughead says. 

It’s good to spend time with Betty again. School has kept her busy and smelling of strangers. The weekends never seem long enough. Thankfully she has three weeks off for Christmas and Jughead plans to take advantage of all of it.

Or rather to take careful advantage of all of it. It’s hard not to press his lips against Betty’s right now.

He’s wanted to be with her for a long time now. He knows the way she feels about him, barring a vast misunderstanding of scents, is more or less the same. 

According to Archie he’s “ridiculous for not just going for it.” Or as Veronica put it “the king of fools” (which was at least kinder than Toni’s “dumber than fuck” comment, which now that Jughead’s thinking about it doesn’t make much sense).

But the facts are as follows: 

1\. Jughead’s loved Betty forever. It’s the one thing he’s always been sure of. 

2\. When Jughead was six, Gladys, in her infinite screwed-up wisdom confirmed that Betty was Jughead’s mate. 

3.Gladys informed Jughead that FP was not her soulmate. She told him that her soulmate was a human who after a few years had decided that he wanted to “explore their options” and left. He never even spoke to Gladys again.

4.Gladys explained that while wolves mate for life, most humans don’t work that way. She blamed her whole soulmate fiasco on the fact that they were too young when she told him about her feelings, her instincts. Gladys swore up and down that Jughead needed to give Betty the time and freedom to figure out her own life. If he jumped the gun with Betty, he would lose her.

5\. Jughead had promised Gladys that he would never tell Betty she was his mate, and so far, against his better judgement, he’d kept that promise.

6.Reasons 1 thru 5 were why Betty was now at college and they were rather absurdly and frustratingly “just friends.”

Jughead spent a lot of his time wishing his mother hadn’t told him about her mate in the first place. He wanted to kiss Betty badly. Hell, he wanted to slip a ring on Betty’s finger badly.

Every time he smelled arousal on her, he wanted to kiss her. Every time he caught the scent of sadness on her, he wanted to tell her he loved her, in every way, with every part of himself.

Sometimes the self-loathing caught up with him, made him hide from her on weekends, punch walls, and claw curtains. He could make her so much happier, he could make them both so much happier, if he could just ignore what Gladys had told him. 

But there were so few things his mother told him before she died and this was one of them, so in spite of his urges, he sat, his body angled away from Betty so she couldn’t feel anything awkward or unexpected, and his arm wrapped around her. 

“I’ve missed this,” Betty says with a sigh, and then rather unexpectedly Archie slides across the living room floor risky business style, underwear and all. Veronica claps.

“Even that?” Jughead asks and raises an eyebrow. 

Betty shakes her head and laughs. 

He leans towards her, wanting nothing more than to kiss her when Toni starts screaming about vampires in the other room. 

It turns out only to be a drunken attempt at humor but by the time they are back on the sofa, the moment has passed. 

That night he punches through the basement wall, angry at himself more than anything else. 

In the morning when Toni asks about the hole, Archie shrugs his shoulders sheepishly and says, “It must have been me.”

**6.**

“Why did it have to be snakes? I hate snakes,” Sweet Pea whines as he dusts snake guts off his leather jacket.

“Stop quoting movies,” Jughead snarks.

“You’re one to talk,” Betty says with a smile.

Sweet Pea has a confused expression on his face when he says, “I wasn’t quoting a movie.” 

“Heathen,” Jughead mutters.

“I’m pretty sure we are all heathens here,” Betty says with a laugh. She too is covered in snake guts. There’s a particularly terrible chunk on the front of her shirt, but she doesn’t mind. “I’m just glad we managed to free the school library of this monster.”

She’s been attending Northern New York State University for the last two years now. Betty has a studio apartment here that the pack pays for (Veronica’s contribution had made them very well off, and the partnerships they’d formed with other packs has also helped) but Betty doesn’t even think of it as home. 

Part of the reason is that NNYSU seemed more or less supernatural free. There was a ghost she took care of on her own a year ago, and a few rogue werewolves she’d had to deal with over the years, but till today nothing had been big enough to call in pack. 

Because of that Jughead and Sweet Pea had never actually visited her before, and Sweet Pea seemed thrilled to be here, snakes aside.

“Where to next?” Sweet Pea asks.

“A shower, obviously,” Jughead says. 

“And then can we go out and drink?” 

Betty feels like eating pizza and crawling into bed and snuggling with Sweet Pea and Jughead, but the Alice Cooper trained part of her could never be the kind of hostess that put herself first. 

Besides she understands Sweet Pea’s excitement. The guy barely ever leaves Riverdale, going out somewhere new is too big of an opportunity to pass up.

“Sure,” Betty says. “There’s a pub a few blocks from my place.”

Two hours later she and Jughead are watching, or rather trying not to watch, Sweet Pea and a brunette make out across the booth from them. 

“Let’s go,” Betty says, sliding out and standing up.

“Yes, please.” Jughead has a relieved look on his face when he says that. 

Sweet Pea doesn’t respond at all, but Betty knows he hears. He has werewolf hearing after all. 

“Do you think he’s going to come back to the apartment tonight?” Betty asks as they make their way back to it.

The minute she sees Jughead’s half smile/half grimace she has a clear answer. She’s glad he didn’t verbalize it. After all it should have been pretty clear. 

While most of the werewolves are monogamous and leery of venturing outside the pack, Sweet Pea’s never been that way. 

It’s strange because even though Betty isn’t a werewolf, it’s something she has in common with them. The idea of being intimate with someone outside of the pack is unfathomable for her, which is probably why she’s ended up being a twenty year old virgin (even though that kind of makes her a liability as far as the supernatural world is concerned.) 

She unlocks the door to her apartment and Jughead follows her in. It’s small. Just a studio, but Betty couldn’t conceive of sharing a dorm with a stranger. 

When she first started college, the pack used to make her shower and then scent her a lot as soon as she got home for the weekend. Just her being around so many strangers to them was a repellent situation. 

“It’s a good apartment,” Jughead says, sprawling on the sofa.

“It’s not the same as the pack house.” Betty sighs, plopping down beside him.

“No, but at least you have privacy.”

“I thought you invested in soundproofing for all the bedrooms and the washrooms.” Betty’s pretty sure she remembers that correctly, because it was the only big expense Jughead approved of instead of opposed. 

It made sense. Werewolf hearing meant you always knew a little more than you wanted to about other people’s private lives.

“But I didn’t soundproof the kitchen and that’s where Josie and Toni were….”

Betty cuts him off with a raised flat hand, “I do not need to know.”

“Here, you can do whatever you want.” Something about his tone notes an unspoken implication of ‘whomever’ you want, although for Betty, that’s now how it works at all

“Mostly I just feel overworked and lonely.” 

Betty looks away from Jughead and out the window, or at least she tries to look out the window. Instead she’s surprised by her own reflection in the dark glass. She looks like she’s on the edge of tears.

Jughead, just behind her, and a little more blurry, looks scared, his hand hovering over her shoulder, as if he’s scared of touching her.

She knows in that moment, that he loves her the same way she loves him. Though she doesn’t know why he hasn’t said as much, and she can’t help feeling angry about the fact that he’s stayed silent.

At this point she knows that she has nothing to lose by putting all her cards on the table and seeing if he’ll reveal his.

Betty clears her throat and says, “You and I always feel like two halves of the same whole. When I’m here, I feel like I’m pretending to be someone I not.” 

“Who is that?”

“A college student who knows nothing about the supernatural. Someone who’s single.”

A look of confusion passes over the reflection of Jughead’s face and Betty realizes she has to clarify.

She turns towards him and says “I mean technically I’m single. I’ve always been single. But I feel like I’m in a relationship with you. I feel only half myself without you.”

Jughead’s face looks so soft, so open. He opens his mouth as if to say something, and then he must change his mind, because he leans over and presses his cheek into her chest. It’s a move of comfort he’s done many times before, with a human it would be sexual, or at least involve intent of some kind, but with wolves, it’s different.

Or, maybe it isn’t, because after a minute of his head resting there, heavy and warm, he kisses her lightly on the collarbone as if he’s testing something out.

She pulls away. “What was that?”

He sits up, his eyes bright, his body twitching with nerves “I thought maybe you wanted that.”

“Do you?’ she says, laying a hand on his thigh.

“Yes.” He says it so quietly, she’s not sure he’s said anything at all at first, then he repeats it louder.

Then moving slowly, he presses his lips to hers. It’s softer than she expected, less confident, but with each slow and steady press after that first one, a confidence builds, a warmth, a heat.

She feels swept up in it all, shocked when Jughead pulls back, his eyes wide, and then, a half second later the front door swings open.

Sweet Pea’s there, his hair mussed, and his shirt torn. He’s clearly still in his own head, because the first words out of his mouth are, “She kicked me out as soon as we were done.” 

Betty sits up straight, adjusts her hair and attempts nonchalance. “What were you expecting from a one night stand, Pea? Breakfast in bed.”

Sweet Pea shakes his head, “Hell no, but I expected the night part.”

“Oh, well,” Jughead says, standing up.

“Wait a second,” Pea says, gives them both a skeptical once over and then sniffs the air, almost theatrically, a smile growing on his face. “Fucking finally!”

“What?” Betty raises a solitary eyebrow. She’s pretty sure that making out isn’t something werewolves could smell. That’s when she notices how her pink lipstick has smudged its way on to Jughead’s lower lip. Shit.

“You two kissed. I think that means Toni won the bet.” Pea says, taking his phone out of his pocket. 

“Please don’t text anyone.” She’s still not sure how they got here. A minute ago something that she longed for for almost a decade was happening and now Pea is teasing them about some sort of bet.

“Stop.” Jughead alpha snarls at Sweet Pea, who drops his phone and startles back, his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. The expression on his face hinting at something else.

Betty’s phone dings, and so does Jughead’s. She glances at the screen, and there in group chat is a message from Sweet Pea that says, “Jughead finally kissed Betty.”

Their phones start to vibrate and ping with a flurry of responses. A fast glance at Betty’s phone’s screen revels a whole lot of heart and lip emoji’s. 

A flush rises in Betty’s cheeks. 

“You ruined our moment,” Jughead says. “You can leave now.”

“Too bad that you’re my ride,” Sweet Pea shrugs.

“Betty will drive me back,” Jughead says, throwing Sweet Pea the keys. “Just leave.”

Sweet Pea grabs the keys, wiggles his eyebrows, and cackles as he leaves. They do not immediately start kissing.

Instead they stare at each other awkwardly. Betty can’t help but worry that things will backpedal, that they will not kiss again for years.

“I love you.” Jughead blurts out, but that’s not reassuring. After all she’s known he’s loved her their whole lives. They say it all the time to each other. His love for her is not up for debate, but the kind of love he has is. 

“Romantically?”

“Of course.’”

“Then why wait this long to kiss me?” 

Jughead blushes, and it’s an unusual look on him. Betty’s not sure she’s seen it before. 

“I’ve wanted to kiss you forever. Even when we were kids, before I knew what kissing meant, I knew I wanted to do it with you.”

Betty wants to punch him right now. It’s not even a real answer to her question. But there’s no point in hitting him without wearing her wolfsbane gloves. 

“Then why didn’t you?”

Betty knows her anger is showing, because Jughead bends his head towards her, revealing his neck. A sign of submission, of apology.

“I was an idiot. I was so worried that loving me would drag you into danger and get you killed, or that it wouldn’t be enough in the long run, that I’d hold you back from all the wonderful human parts of life.”

Betty still feels anger beneath her skin, but it’s less urgent now. It’s not as important as the love she feels for Jughead as he stares at her hands, like the answer to all of his problems are in her palms.

“What are the wonderful human parts of life, stitches?” Betty asks teasingly, pressing her palms lightly against his. His fingers curl up around hers. It feels so intimate she finds it suddenly hard to breath.

The words “it’s happening” hum in her brain. Her skin vibrates with joy. She’s still mad he didn’t kiss her earlier, but she can’t help but be happy that he kissed her now. 

“Why’d you finally kiss me?”

“Because you said you were lonely. Because you said you were half yourself without me,” Jughead says, reaching a hand out and placing it on her thigh. “I always assumed you were taking advantage of your time without me at college. I thought you were sowing your wild oats.” 

Betty can’t help but laugh hysterically, her whole body shaking. When she has finally calmed down she says, “I’m pretty sure that metaphor doesn’t even apply to women. But even if it did, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Why would you even think that?”

Jughead’s cheeks grow pink and he looks away and mumbles, “Because I’m clearly an idiot.” 

After he turns back to face her, there’s no more talking for a while. Their lips conveying so much more than words.

**7.**

Jughead’s struggling to breath. The strange alpha’s foot is cutting off his windpipe. Around him he can hear snarling and bullets, the clang of Toni’s katana. But as the foot stays on his throat longer, the edges of Jughead’s vision blur.

The Alpha’s eyes go wide and he lurches forward. Jughead has a split second to dread the other man’s weight falling on him, but it never does. 

Betty, snarling even though she’s as human as ever, shoves the Alpha’s body out of the way, and Jughead pushes himself up to standing.

The battle around them has stopped. There’s a lot of blood, and the body counts going to be impressive, but all of Jughead’s pack is safe. 

Betty presses a hand against his back “How are you doing?” 

“Fine, now,” he says, turning to kiss her, the now familiar press of her lips against his is comforting. 

“Good,” she whispers after she stops kissing, but before she pulls away, her lips still inches from him.

“Yuck!” Archie says sourly.

Jughead can’t help but kiss Betty again to spite Archie, and because another kiss seems like the right thing to do (it almost always does).

“I can’t believe we wanted them to stop pining,” Sweet Pea says with a sigh. “This is definitely worse.”

Jughead kisses Betty deeper and flips Sweet Pea the finger. It’s all he deserves right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!
> 
> (as are other fic rec's)


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